


Don't Lie

by Howlingdawn



Series: Whumptober 2019 [7]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Family Feels, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Whumptober, Whumptober 2019, set in my We Could Not Stay verse, thank you to tng 5x05 for the technical aspects of the plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 13:43:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21162599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Howlingdawn/pseuds/Howlingdawn
Summary: When the turbolift breaks down with Nyota, T'Lal, and Suna trapped inside, it's up to Nyota to get them out. Unfortunately, broken ribs and a years old promise rather complicate her efforts.





	Don't Lie

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Whumptober Day 24 - Secret Injury
> 
> Timeline note: T'Lal is seven in this, and Suna is four

“Mother?”

Suna’s voice woke Nyota with a jolt. Her head spun, the flickering turbolift lights adding to her disorientation. Thankfully, those quickly settled into dim but steady emergency lighting. She tried to sit up, only to freeze with a gasp as pain seared through her side. She pressed a hand against the pain and flinched, immediately regretting the movement.

_That’s a broken rib. Or two._

The turbolift shook, prompting a higher pitched “Mom?”

She swallowed down the pain and sat up, turning to the girls. T’Lal was standing, glaring at the turbolift as if she could make it suffer for scaring her sister. Suna knelt in her shelter, holding her hand, a bloodied cut on her forehead. She looked relieved when Nyota scooted over to them. “Are you two ok?”

“I’m gonna be late for my playdate with Iris,” T’Lal grumbled.

“I think she’ll understand,” Nyota said, rubbing her arm before tilting Suna’s forehead to better use what little light they had. “What about you, sweetheart? Does this hurt much? Any dizziness?”

“No.”

Suna had chosen the Vulcan way of life, but now she mumbled, looking nervously around, and her voice before she sat up had definitely been scared. Nyota smiled, tipping her chin up and placing a gentle kiss upon her hairline. “It’s ok to be scared, sweetie. Why don’t you try your breathing exercises? In and out, nice and steady.”

Suna nodded, closing her eyes and breathing deeply, just as Spock had taught her. She tapped her fingers against her leg to count, the only way she ever fidgeted during meditation, and the familiar actions calmed her. She didn’t even blink when Nyota used her sleeve to dab away the little bit of blood her cut had shed. “That’s my girl.”

“What happened?” T’Lal asked. “Why did we fall?”

Nyota used the wall to pull herself to her feet, biting her lip hard enough to draw blood to keep from screaming, one hand pressed to her side. T’Lal narrowed her eyes. “Are you ok, Nyota?”

“I’ll be fine,” she said through gritted teeth, trying to activate the panel. “This is dead. We must have been hit by something.”

“Or attacked.”

“If we had been attacked, I think there would’ve been more than one impact.”

“But what could hit us in space?”

The turbolift shook again, and Nyota had to fight harder than she cared to admit to keep her balance. Realizing they couldn’t stay put, she went to the doors and tried to pry them open. “An old mine leftover from a war, any number of phenomena, the list goes on. We’re in uncharted space; there’s no real way to avoid some things.”

The doors refused to budge, and given the agony in her side, she wasn’t inclined to keep trying. With the panel down, she couldn’t communicate, so there was no way to know when or even if rescue was coming, and given the state of things, she didn’t trust the emergency systems to hold them in place. Which left climbing out through the top hatch that she couldn’t easily reach, followed by climbing a ladder until they found a door that would open.

_Lovely._

She returned to the panel, prying it off the wall to expose the wiring and cabling within. She pulled the optical cabling out, testing its strength, and passed it to T’Lal. “Tie this around your waist. Make sure the knots are strong.”

She pulled the rest out while T’Lal did that, then checked T’Lal’s knots before tying in Suna and then herself, connecting the three of them together. She accidentally pulled it taut against her ribs and sucked in a breath, the world going black for a split second. When it came back, she was still standing, but Suna was holding her hand while T’Lal looked at her in concern. “You’re not ok.”

Nyota forced a smile onto her face. “I’ll live. The important thing right now is getting out of here. Come here.”

She reached out, but T’Lal stepped back, avoiding her hand. “You said you’d never lie to me.”

Guilt knocked the smile away. She knelt, suppressing a shudder as even the light impact of her knee on the floor reverberated up into her ribs, and held out her hand. “I’m not, T’Lal. I will live. And we have to get out of here.”

Slowly, T’Lal took her proffered hand. “If you’re lying to me...”

_I hope I’m not. _“Come on, up you go.”

T’Lal climbed onto her shoulders, and with no small amount of effort, Nyota stood, eyes clenched shut against tears of pain. T’Lal pulled the lever and pushed the hatch open, pressing down against Nyota for support. Nyota couldn’t breathe again until she was climbing out, and trying to suck in a breath to make up for it nearly made the world go black again, so she settled for working through it and lifting Suna up to join her sister.

As soon as she was up, Nyota gave in to the urge to cough, and it was violent and hurt like hell and- _crap_.

Hot, wet fluid hit her palm, and she knew without looking that it was blood. Aware of the girls waiting for her, she wiped it away underneath her jacket, zipped that up, and jumped to grab hold of the edge of the opening, grateful for the girls’ Vulcan strength as they helped her out. “Are you ok?” T’Lal asked again.

Seeing the fear creeping back into Suna’s expression and caught in her promise never to lie to T’Lal, she ignored the question. “Time to climb, girls. I’ll go first, and T’Lal can bring up the rear.”

She started climbing the ladder before T’Lal could protest or push further, moving as swiftly as she could, which was not very swiftly. Luckily, the nearest door wasn’t far, but when she tried to input the override code to open it manually, it wouldn’t budge. She tried three more times and got the same result. Looking up with dread in her heart and ever-worsening pain in her chest, she said “We’ll have to try the next deck.”

“What if that one does not open either?” Suna asked.

She smiled down at her daughter. “Then we’ll just keep climbing. Don’t worry, sweetheart, we’ll be out of here before you can say ‘_kolinahr_.’”

“_Koli_-”

“Not literally, Suna,” T’Lal said, laughing.

“Oh.”

Shaking her head affectionately, Nyota resumed her climb.

Below them, the turbolift finally fell with a squeal of metal, making the entire shaft shake.

With a shriek, Suna lost her grip on the ladder. T’Lal lunged for her, and lost her own grip.

Their weight jerked against the cabling wrapped around Nyota’s waist. Her scream turned into a choked coughing fit, but she clung to the ladder in a death grip. “I won’t let you fall,” she said through gritted teeth. “Just grab the ladder again.”

Too busy clenching her eyes shut and fighting off unconsciousness, she wasn’t sure who got back on first, but the weight on the cabling lessened by one girl, and then the other. She wanted to pant, to catch her breath, but all she could do was cough, and she knew she was coughing up blood.

“Mom?”

Now it was T’Lal calling her mom. After everything T’Pring had put her through, she rarely used the word – or any variation of it – and when she did, it was when she was scared out of her mind.

_No. I will not cost her another mother, and I will _not _let her fall._

“I’ll be ok,” she rasped, swallowing down the coughs through sheer force of will. “I just… needed a minute.”

With her sleeve, she swiped clumsily at the blood splattered across the ladder. Knowing she’d done a poor job, knowing that T’Lal at least was bound to see it and put two and two together, she moved on anyway, forcing herself further up the ladder. The control panel for the next door was just five rungs away… four… three… two… one… she reached for the panel, inputting the code with clumsy fingers, and-

The door opened.

“Nyota!”

And there was Spock.

_Oh, thank God._

He helped her out of the shaft, and she wanted nothing more than to collapse into his arms, but she turned around to help the girls. First Suna and then T’Lal reached the safety of Spock’s arms, and he pulled her into the hug as well, and the sweet relief of that reunion was almost enough to make her forget her pain.

Almost.

“Spock? You should call Len.”

T’Lal was looking at her, eyes wide and fearful, and Nyota reached for her hand, grabbing it and holding like a lifeline, as if the silent promise it held that she would never lie to T’Lal would anchor her to life until Len could get to her.

And it did.

\-----

When she awoke in medbay the next morning, her three favorite Vulcans were at her side. Spock was in a chair, Suna on his lap, both sound asleep; T’Lal alone was awake, perched on the edge of her biobed. “You’re ok,” she said, shoulders slumping in relief.

Nyota smiled, running her fingers through T’Lal’s curled hair. “I told you I would be.”

T’Lal laid down, snuggling up against her. “I was worried.”

“Me too, sweetheart,” she admitted quietly. “But I plan on being around for a long time yet.”

“You’d better not be lying,” she said through a yawn, eyes drifting shut.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”


End file.
